Because mainstream fiction pays much less attention to the attractiveness and fashion choices of male characters than female ones, male characters are less likely to get makeovers at all, and this trope largely applies to female ones.

This often applies to real life celebrities getting plastic surgery, with many fans saying they preferred the old face over the new, especially if the celeb in question was already considered attractive to begin with. Whatever flaws they had—including signs of aging—simply made them look like a human being as opposed to an artificial doll of perfect beauty, which tends to make viewers uncomfortable more often than not. It can even affect their work if they get rid of whatever facial quirks made them so distinct in the first place, as Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing found out the hard way.

Examples

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Gay.com once did makeover special in collaboration with Out magazine. For one of the guys, he was an average joe in flannel and was reasonably handsome in his "before" pic. Meanwhile, his "after" pic put him in ridiculously pretentious fashionista clothing and his hair had about five gallons of product in it. His "before" pic looked far more comfortable and natural, but supposedly not gay enough.

Kyon tells Yuki that she's cuter without glasses, and a thousand Meganekko fanboys curse his non-name forever. This may have been a factor in the choice of which book to make into a movie...

Some fans also criticise him for advising Haruhi herself to cut her long hair.

Kaaya in the second season of The Tower of Druaga. It was probably done to help boost her popularity (Fatina and Coopa stole all of the fanartist attention; its kinda unusual amongst anime fandoms for the female lead to be overlooked compared to a side character like Fatina was in the first season), but most people seem to prefer her season 1 look and think that her season 2 look just makes her look older.

Played for drama in Detective Conan when a rock star ended up murdered as revenge for dumping a woman who had plastic surgery in order to look more conventionally beautiful. In this case, he considered the make-over unnecessary; she didn't.

Played for laughs in an episode of Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 where Priss Asagiri, the rebellious biker singer, loses a bet to her flighty boss Sylia Stingray and is forced to endure the humiliation of being photographed wearing an ugly, outdated ballroom style pink dress with her hair tied back, all to the amusement of her fellow Knight Sabers.

Horimiya has Miyamura decide to get his shoulder-length hair done into a shorter, more boyish cut, because he wants to look the part of 'Hori's Boyfriend' and avoid her being teased for dating someone who 'looks like him◊'; several of his classmates say they prefer his shorter hair. Fans tended to disagree, preferring the longer hair. Even in-universe, Hori herself thinks he should not have done that.

Shun from Kimi to Boku was a Long-Haired Pretty Boy until he cut his hair because of the summer heat. His haircut came out too short for his liking yet he never grew it out again. Many fans were upset that it's been permanent.

Takatsuki from Wandering Son had short hair the entire series but grew it out in high school as she becomes more comfortable being a girl. Most fans prefer the short hair and even she seemed to.

Marika from Bokura no Hentai is introduced wearing glasses but changes to contacts because she thinks she looks bad with glasses. Two of her friends disagree in-series but Marika keeps the contacts.

Done in-story to Rahne of the New Mutants in the "New Mutants Summer Special" issue, when the evil forces of consumerism tried to convince her that she needed makeup and a bland nuclear family life to be happy. Not only was the in-story makeup a disaster (looking like it was drawn on by a small child), but the picture they show her in place of a mirror doesn't look as good as her natural short-haired tomboy look.

Vampirella infamously suffered one of these as her outfit began progressively skimpier under Harris Comics despite the fact she was already one of the most provocative and sensual heroines in comics. It got to the point her outfit's creator, Trina Robbins, called it "dental floss." Controversially, Dynamite has attempted to reverse the damage by actually putting her in a much more conservative training outfit and jacket.

Archie Comics (2015)deconstructs this with the "Lipstick Incident": Betty is convinced by other girls to impress Archie with her next date with him through this trope. However, this makes Betty hyper-sensitive over her looks and makes Archie very uncomfortable, ultimately leading to an argument over Archie's supposed double standard about him ogling girls with make up but likes her plain as possible, leading her to slash Archie's face with her lipstick.

Film - Animated

Beauty and the Beast prompted a few fans who prefer the Beast to the Prince. Of course in this case, the Prince is his true form and it's not necessarily treated as better. Belle indeed looks unsure of this and it isn't until she sees that the eyes are the same that she's happy. A deleted line would have her jokingly asking if he could grow a beard. The line ends up restored in the live-action remake.

In-universe in Wreck-It Ralph: Vanellope finds her princess makeover—which she gains after her identity as the true ruler of Sugar Rush is revealed—unnecessary as she prefers her regular clothes and the role of president.

Many fans preferred Violet from The Incredibles when she had Peek-a-Bangs. Her character development involved her gaining more confidence and no longer hiding behind her bangs however she looked quite cute with her original hairstyle.

Film - Live Action

Allison Reynolds, Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club, has this happen to her. Many people just find her cuter as the "Basket Case". It's one of the most famous examples in movies, but also bears further explanation: in the film, the character is a closet Attention Whore, whose behaviors and manner of dress is meant to draw attention to herself without having to ask for it or acknowledge that she's lonely. She's a loner with no friends, not a Goth or Emo kid who dresses as a way of self-expression or identifying with people like her. Her make-over is partially about accepting affection and kindness from another person (the Alpha Bitch, in this case), and partially about openly acknowledging that she wants attention and human interaction by tucking back her hair and changing her concealing make-up and clothing.

Sandy from Grease. The new "improved" version makes her look like a streetwalker! Danny also shows his buddies his newly acquired varsity letter in track, though his makeover is less emphasized (and quickly discarded when Sandy's new "bad girl" look is revealed).

Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries is this for some viewers, feeling that Anne Hathaway was still cute before losing her glasses and having her hair straightened. Mia herself still feels awkward about the makeover and tries to hide it from her classmates at first.

Jean Cocteau intentionally invoked this trope with his take on the fairy tale, 1946's La Belle et La Bête — this Belle is at least slightly disappointed with the Beast's transformation into a conventionally handsome human, and he set things up to make sure the audience would be too. It worked: Greta Garbo left the screening saying, "Give me back my Beast!"

In Enchanted, Giselle gets a makeover before going to The Ball, giving her a more "realistic" appearance to contrast with the somewhat silly "fairy-tale princess" look she originally had. Given the plot and themes of the film, this makes perfect sense, and the characters react according to the trope. Unfortunately, the filmmakers put the actress in a rather unflattering dress and gave her an unimpressive hairstyle, completely ruining the intended effect; she was much prettier as a "fantasy princess" than as a "real woman." And then she was sent to a ball that specifically had a fantasy theme...

Rachael Leigh Cook in She's All That, and it's one of the many reasons the movie is prime Snark Bait these days. Laney is supposed to be unlikely to be prom queen just because she has glasses and paint-coloured overalls. A few viewers also found it incredibly creepy that Zack then has Laney go to a party wearing a dress that belonged to his ex-girlfriend.

In Earth Girls Are Easy, Geena Davis' character is upset that her fiance is sexually disinterested in her; her best friend decides the answer is a makeover. The movie is half parody, and the best friend is incredibly ditzy AND thinks being blonde is the key to all happiness (which in this universe...it is), it fits.

Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate convinces Charlize Theron that she needs to give herself a makeover. She ends up giving herself an unflattering bob and a brown colour that adds years to her face. This results in her looking quite unhealthy and disturbed-looking (though given the plot of the movie, that was probably the point).

To some Princess Ann's haircut in Roman Holiday. The haircut? Trendy and fashionable back when the movie was made but not so flattering these days.

Likewise the makeover in Sabrina, which consists entirely of a short haircut, as opposed to the cute ponytail that another character claims makes Audrey Hepburn look like a horse.

Many viewers found the Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face a lot more appealing when she was a bookworm wearing black tights and a wool jumper than when she was transformed into a fashion plate. (Audrey Hepburn does seem to get subjected to a lot of unnecessary makeovers in her films....)

Kristen Stewart's character in The Cake Eaters gets one when her aunt takes her to the hairdressers for the day. She asks for something sexy and new. She goes into the shop as a sweet looking thing with Rapunzel Hair and comes out with the most unflattering shaggy bowl cut imaginable. Her aunt calls it "rock star" while the audience has a decidedly different reaction.

Valerie Boyd, the teenager in "The World of Henry Orient" always wore a 19th century style outfit complete with a Victorian England coat (despite it being The '50s) and a shaggy wild hairstyle that looked boyish yet not unfeminine. But then at the end of the movie she had a complete makeover. Many fans thought she looked more like a generic cutie after, losing the wild, untamed girl look about her.

The protagonist of Head Over Heels was already beautiful and practically doesn't change after the model roommates make her look like a model.

In the Follow the Fleet, a Fred-and-Ginger movie from 1936, Harriet Hilliard undergoes her librarian-to-courtesan transformation surprisingly early in the film, in the first fifteen minutes. A scene around ten minutes into the film between the dowdy Hilliard and the glamorous Rogers — cast as sisters — neatly encapsulate the trope itself: 'It isn't that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it's just that we look dumber'; 'Connie, women weren't born with silk stockings on, you know'; 'It takes a lot of brains to be dumb'.

Shaolin Soccer: Mui is a girl with terrible acne and greasy hair, but is nonetheless clearly a very attractive girl, so we know what to expect when she has a makeover. However, it is comically bad, and she's almost unrecognizable as a girl in a boxy 80s suit and bouffant haircut, and clown-like makeup. Of course, that was the point of it, and later on she reappears as herself (minus her acne), with a shaved head (the shaved head being so she could disguise herself as a guy and help Team Shaolin after most of the other players are injured by Team Evil). Even without her hair she's still very attractive.

Subverted in The Duff. Wes gives Bianca a makeover, but it's more about giving Bianca a confidence boost, so she keeps wearing her old clothes. However, he does make her start wearing properly fitted bras.

A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!: One of Tootie's most notable characteristics in her original Fairly Oddparents is her Ugly Cute appearance in that despite having a girlish pigtails, glasses, and teeth bracers, she nevertheless has a lot of fans. Tootie's adult appearance in the live action film on the other hand, is widely considered to be unnecessary with virtually all aspects of her Ugly Cute appearance (Including her glasses) gone in addition to her Genki Girl antics leaving her as just another Nice GirlSatellite Love Interest. It got to the point that a flashback to a live-action young Tootie is certainly a lot more recognizable than her adult appearance.

Literature

In the X-Wing Series, Plourr Illo was a muscular Amazon-type with a shaved head, who sometimes wore a headpiece◊ that looked like an odd hairdo. A few arcs in, she was revealed to be a princess in exile. Her old nanny fussed over her head, bemoaning the long hair she used to have. Plourr and the Rogues went to her homeworld, where Plourr started letting her hair grow — and generally she dressed the same as ever when not in a court function, and she kept her hair short◊. But although this wasn't a terrible change, there was something about the bald aesthetic. Ah well.

In the Bridget Jones series, there were two books where Bridget got down to her goal weight of 116 lbs. from her much maligned 125-138 lbs.; in both instances, it was remarked by people who knew Bridget (and consider her reasonably attractive) that she looked very ill and even remarked about how diminished her breasts look. Granted even after all this, Bridget still aches to be thin.

Live Action TV

One of TV's most controversial Unnecessary Makeovers occurred in Felicity, when the title character cut off her signature mop of brass-blonde curls◊. This might more accurately be called a Marine Corps Makeover, since she was sheared like a sheep, down to nothing but vacuum tracks. The new hairstyle and accompanying wardrobe change (from sweatery to kicky) mirrored the production team's intent to morph the show into something different, including a jarring change from a moody, introspective opening theme to an upbeat pop song. All done in the name of ratings, the fan reaction was mixed at best, with many viewers outraged and disappointed.

The short "Body Care and Grooming", which featured a disheveled college girl "made over" to show the value of grooming in one's dating life. Crow and Tom Servo held a mock debate in the skit after the short, arguing over whether she looked better neat or "sloppy." They riff on the guy going after the "madeover" girl and saying, "Uh, excuse me, I couldn't help but notice how much you look like everyone else!"

Narrator, disapprovingly: Look at your hair.

Crow: I like her hair!

Narrator: Look at that blouse.

Crow: I'm looking, I'm looking!

Inverted in a Rifftrax they did for Terrible Truth. The film tries to show how strung out the girl looks after 6 months of heroin abuse, but the riffers actually think she's more attractive after than before.

Sometimes people find the women on Survivor to be more attractive while stranded on the island than when they're dolled up for the reunion show (unless they wear Fetish Fuel stuff, that is, like Kelly Wiggelsworth's skin tight strapless leather minidress).

Most of the contestants start out as underdressed with far too much fake tan, eyeshadow and hair extensions, but every so often someone with an obviously creative, unique taste in fashion and makeup is stripped of all originality for the sake of boring conformity.

On the other hand, a lot of contestants seem to have gradually performed this trope on themselves, covering their real appearance in increasingly over-the-top layers of beauty products until they can't face the world without hours spent in preparation; they come to the show in search of re-learning how to look okay with a more ordinary level of grooming.

The high watermark in most episodes is the point where they have removed all the make up and fake tan, and the subject is just wearing a bathrobe. After that they proceed to make her (in most shows the subject is a young woman) look like a schoolteacher almost at retirement age.

Scrubs treats Elliot's makeover at the start of Season 3 as a big deal. She decides to get an edgier haircut and a lot more make-up. Producers may have realised that it was too much, as she tones down the look as the season goes on. Word of God is that the studio wanted a sexier female character to market to the male demographic, hence the Fanservice Pack. Some fans still think turning Elliot into a Ms. Fanservice was still a bit overdone, given that Sarah Chalke was already a cutie.

Stargate SG-1: Rather meta example in that no one (except, in all probability, the producers) was trying to doll Samantha Carter up, but we'd occasionally see her with long hair and whatever when visiting the future or Another Dimension or whatnot, and every time it happened, it was like...no.

Mildred Hubble of The Worst Witch gives herself a radical makeover in the first episode of the spin off Weirdsister College that involves cutting off her Girlish Pigtails. The other characters make a big fuss about how much better she looks except she gave herself an extremely frumpy hairstyle that made her look like she was in her 30s. She tidied herself up a bit towards the end of the series but most fans still preferred her with pigtails.

In Lost many people preferred Kate's natural, casual and outdoorsy appearance on the island to her made-up, formal and fashionable appearance off of the island in the fourth season.

In the 2006 Robin Hood, the character of Djaq is forced to disguise herself as a boy for her own protection, leading her to crop her hair short and wear baggy pants and a cleavage-concealing waistcoat. In the second season, she's much more feminine, has longer (though still short) hair and wears what can only be described as an "outer-bra." Most people preferred her season one appearance.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, late-seasons Willow compared to early-seasons Willow. In this case, her change in style may have had less to do with becoming more pretty (she already was) than with illustrating her character development.

Rachel's makeover is acknowledged as one of these in-show, when Finn eventually tells her "I'm gonna say this as nice as I can, but you look like a... sad clown hooker".

They did it again in Season Four with the same character. "New York Rachel" dresses and carries herself almost exactly like Lea Michele (the actress playing the role). A very large segment of the fandom prefers the way she dressed before.

This is also done in iCarly with Sam. The boy likes Sam's new look, but reveals that he likes her neutral look even more.

This is exactly the intended effect in a Twilight Zone episode, "Number 12 Looks Just Like You", where everyone is required to get cosmetic surgery to make them look like identical models. One Hollywood Homely gamine, perhaps tomboyish for the day, shocks everyone and is sent to a psychiatrist when she questions whether the surgery is really necessary. They end up performing the surgery against her wishes — and she ends up very happy with the results. She also invokes it earlier, when she looks at a picture of her pre-surgery mother and thinks that she looked better that way. The mother, meanwhile, insists that she was "a fright" back then.

In That '70s Show, Donna gets an Unnecessary Makeover when she dyes her hair blonde for... Really no good reason at all other than the fact that Jackie thinks that her red hair looks ugly. Laura Prepon had dyed her hair blonde for the film Karla and the show decided to write it in.

In an episode of The Mentalist, Cho needed to go undercover and pick up a woman. For a sexy guy like Cho, this shouldn't be a problem, but for some reason they thought he needed a makeover first. It just ended up making him look like a sleaze.

10 Things I Hate About You. In an early episode, Bianca convinces her (already cute) sister Kat to get dressed up for prom. She gives her some pearls, a little black dress, a little make up, puts her hair up in a bun. And She. Looks. Horrible. The bun draws attention to her square jaw, the dress basically attacks her figure, and yet even the non-conformist bad boy love interest thinks she looks beautiful.

Hilariously lampooned on Monty Python's Flying Circus where possibly-omnipotent alien Mister Neutron (Graham Chapman) falls in love with Mrs. S-C-U-M (Terry Jones) and uses his powers to turn her into 'the most beautiful woman in the world' — which means Terry Jones in frumpy women's clothing morphs into Terry Jones in marginally less frumpy women's clothing.

In the William Hartnell-era story "The Chase", the Doctor encounters Steven, who has been living in a People Zoo with no human contact for two years, and so bears longish, unkempt hair and a short beard. After the Doctor takes him as a companion in "The Time Meddler", the Doctor recommends he have 'a wash and brush-up', causing him to shave his beard off, and Vicki cuts his hair for him at the start of the next serial, "The Myth Makers". The trouble is that before his makeover, he looks very distinctive◊ and dreamy in an Unkempt Beauty kind of way, and after his makeover he looks like a slightly prettier Ian clone◊ (the previous companion who Steven is a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for). Modern fans seem to prefer the bearded version, though this may be down to Fashion Dissonance — looking like that is very fashionable in the 2010s but was borderline unacceptable in the 1960s.

The complete change of the Fourth Doctor's fashion sense between Season 17 and 18 — from a collection of playful early-Victorian-style garments worn with a gaudy scarf, to a dark red, almost military outfit with plus-fours — was done because the new producer, John Nathan-Turner, wanted to leave his mark on the show. He had originally envisaged a far more extreme change in the Doctor's appearance — he had wanted the scarf gone, possibly a drastic haircut, a 'completely new design of shirt' (that could be sold as Official Cosplay Gear), extreme Limited Wardrobe and big red question marks on the lapels. The costume designer managed to wangle this down to a more toned-down scarf, a heavily-layered Limited Wardrobe that the actor could switch out pieces of whenever he felt like it, and a shirt with an interesting cut modelled after Victorian waistcoats with ivory question marks on the lapels. The new outfit does look good and flattering and everyone involved was satisfied with it, but both the costume designer and Tom Baker himself felt that the producer wanted to change the outfit for the sake of change alone.

In the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race, the drag queens were tasked with giving glamorous makeovers to a group of tomboyish female martial artists. The challenge ended up being very lopsided since there were maybe two Brawn Hildas; the rest were already fairly attractive and simply needed help with makeup and walking in heels. Needless to say, when Rebecca Glasscock won the mini-challenge and was tasked with choosing her own and the others' partners, she picked the prettiest one for herself and the most challenging one for her rival Shannel.

Eva Marie has this reaction in the first episode of Total Divas. Concerned that she resembles the Bella Twins too much, the office try to have her dye her hair blonde. Eva freaks out and, unable to go through with it, opts to dye her hair red instead. Some fans feel the red doesn't look good, but it's agreed to be relatively distinctive and "All Red Everything" became her Catch-Phrase.

A curse in The 10th Kingdom causes Virginia to suffer Rapid Hair Growth to get Rapunzel Hair. Wolf takes a magic axe to it...and cuts her hair completely short. It was shoulder length originally, but Wolf cuts it to a pixie length. For a few fans, this was just too drastic a change. Especially since Virginia was shown to be very unhappy with the result.

Professional Wrestling

Dolph Ziggler had a brief period in 2011 where he cut all his blond hair short and switched to some more muted trunks. Vickie Guerrero called this "new and improved", but the result made him look like The Generic Guy.note The change wasn't entirely by choice, as he had to cut his hair off due to the constant dye jobs ruining it It was unanimously agreed that the change was ill-thought out and he re-bleached the hair as soon as it got long enough.

WWE Diva Aksana made the unwise decision to go from blonde◊ to brunette. This is a polarizing one, however, as just as many prefer her with dark hair as they do with blonde.

While on the subject of WWE Divas, Nikki Bella got breast implants in 2012 because she was unhappy with her figure. Many fans are upset because she no longer looks like her twin sister Brie, and since most women in professional wrestling have breast implants, it was admirable that they did not have them. However, there are others who are fine with it for obvious reasons. Nikki also opted to start weight training, developing a more muscular physique than Brie. This choice is divisive for twoconflicting reasons.

Some fans have this reaction to various wrestling women putting in hair extensions or weaves. Charlotte in particular was attacked for how bad her fake hair looked when she first started wearing them.

Any wrestler known for having long hair that gets it cut short can inspire this reaction. The Undertaker is one such example. He has cut his hair short several times over his career, but he has always grown it back out. likely because it's part of his trademark image. Edge also cut his hair short after retiring, but as of 2017 has grown it long again. Some wrestlers, such as Diamond Dallas Page, Christian and Triple H, are agreed to look better with short hair than long hair.

As an inverse of the above, the short-haired, clean shaven AJ Styles grew long hair and a beard in 2013. His "Soccer mom" hairstyle has become big-time Snark Bait in the fandom and many wish he'd cut it short again.

Video Games

A male example would be Otacon switching his glasses for contacts in Metal Gear Solid 4, because it makes him look "more handsome". General consensus was relief when he put his glasses back on and started looking sexy and sophisticated again instead of mildly dorky.

Xenosaga 2's new 'realistic' character models were so reviled by the fans, that the new, new characters in Xenosaga 3 were much closer to the first game (though not the same).

Lady of the Devil May Cry series was changed from an appropriately moody teenager with a slight tomboyish Catholic Schoolgirl moe (due to purple spandex shorts and her 'skirt' being made of ammo for her guns) to... just another busty woman with Absolute Cleavage and flawless skin, having her dress less modestly than Trish. A lack of a role in the fourth game didn't help either.

FakeFactory's Cinematic Mod for Half-Life 2 gave the old Source engine a serious kick in the pants, allowing for far more beautiful environments. While these were applauded, fans everywhere raged at the inclusion of the author's version of Alyx Vance. The mod replaces Alyx's down-to-earth, realistic appearance with a new model based on real-life supermodel Adriana Lima, wearing a midriff-baring shirt and exposing her cleavage. Later versions removed her bra, showing Alyx's nipples through her shirt. Many Half-Life 2 fans revolted at the changes, because the entire reason she was popular was because she wasn't an Sports Illustrated pinup girl and more of a Girl Next Doornote Who just happens to be a skilled resistance member and hacker and have a giant robot dog.

The Sims games act as a storytelling medium as well as a video game. Anyone can send stories to the official website accompanied by images from the game. Many, many of these stories consist of sims getting makeovers. Some are fine; a lot are unnecessary. A lot of them feature Maxis sims being redesigned so as to lose their distinctive quirky apperances. A particularly bad story featured only two or three images: A before shot of Gothically-dressed Lilith Pleasant, and an after shot of her dressed in generic preppy clothing. Based on the outfit change alone, the narrator told us we were supposed to believe that all her family problems went away, too.

Hawke's Love Interest in Dragon Age II gets a costume switch immediately after their Relationship Upgrade, in most cases a pretty minor alteration. Merrill gets a complete change from her grey and green clothes to a strange white and silver costume that not only ditches the Scarf of Asskicking but doesn't interact with the character model correctly to the point that her neck overlaps the high collar when she's moving her head around.

It's a plot point twist where we discover who Princess Zelda is and not a proper makeover so it serves as more of a visual cue than an intentional makeover, and for that reason wouldn't be this except that the in-game reaction in The Wind Waker is that Tetra is much prettier as Zelda. Many feel she looked better as Tetra the pirate girl. It's more the in-game reaction that evokes this trope, because it's not meant to be an actual makeover, but merely a revelation. But then again, there was no need to have her clothes change from her cute pirate outfit to a typical Princess Zelda dress since only the identity was revealed, but we guess a text revelation isn't as dramatic.

Midna in Twilight Princess tends to get similar reactions to her more humanoid "true form", with people finding her initial implike design cuter, more unique, and conveying more of her sassy appeal. Even on porn sites, artwork of imp Midna outnumbers artwork of her true form about ten to one.

Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have extensive modding communities; there are plenty of mods that change the appearance of the protagonist as well as various notable characters, bearing titles such as "Attractive Lydia", "Attractive Veronica", "Attractive Breton", etc. While the mod developer likely consider it an improvement over the canonical appearance, this is not automatically true with every player. The same goes for clothes mods and body replacers: names like "More Realistic Female Bodies" or similar were popular for a while, until the trend of just bloating the female models' chests to large sizes regardless of whether it was actually realistic or even functional — often breaking armor meshes and textures — quickly became over-saturated and only a few "high quality" ones remained.

This was the general reaction to some of the redesigns from Shin Megami Tensei IV. While some, like Minotaur made sense to be redesigned since he hadn't been seen in the series for an extremely long time, other's like the Archangels and Lucifer where less so. This issue was made worse due to them being redesigned by guest artists causing them to feel out of place in the game.

A stick figure asks its artist to draw it better, from which he turns it into a cartoon girl. The girl then asks to be drawn pretty, to which the artist gives her long hair and nicer clothes. However, her facial features are exactly the same and as shown in the Know Your Meme comments, plenty of readers think she looked pretty before he gave her the makeover.

Inverted in this parody comic, where the artist leaves it a stick figure, saying "You are already perfect." The stick figure is pleased with this.

Made into an entire story arc in Girls with Slingshots after Clarice questions Maureen's sex appeal. Maureen reads US Magazine, gives herself a makeover, and starts trying to be aggressive, which upsets her boyfriend and her platonic friends until she reverts to being Maureen.

Danny of Roomies! shouts at his TV about this here. Thankfully, Joe's prophecy appears to be coming true these days.

In Sticky Dilly Buns, Amber and Dillon helped Ruby prepare for her first date. Their efforts didn't improve much on her nerdy charm.

"Bimbofication" images often focus on taking a regular girl and transforming her into a blonde-haired,large-breasted nymphomaniac. A common complaint about them is that the girl looked more appealing and unique beforehand, instead of just being a long-discredited stereotype.

Web Originals

This poem by Monica Gilbey Bieber gruesomely deconstructs this trope. In the poem, an evil seamstress most likely meant to symbolize society forcibly sews a dress and mask into the skin of her victim, meant to symbolize the person being forced to change into someone s/he is not.

In The Nostalgia Chick's video on Grease, she has a "makeover fairy" drop by to give her BFF Nella a makeover. Boy, does it not work. Most of the comments on the video said either "There's nothing wrong with Nella!" or "How could you be so nasty to her?"note That Nella was in on the gag and wrote the script was lost on most.

The makeover fairy makes another appearance in the Hercules episode, when she takes advantage of Nella and the Chick being trashed and unconscious to apply lipstick and make them "so pretty!"

Her appearance in the Jem episode sends the girls into the "height" of 80s fashion. Oh, yeah, they look as ridiculous as that sounds.

When she appears in the Grease 2 review, she attempts to makeover Todd in the Shadows. She fails miserably. Again. Honestly, her entire shtick as a recurring character is failing miserably at makeovers.

In Obscurus Lupa's review of "Vampire Dog", she notes that the makeover the dog helps give his owner is pointless — not because he looked better before, but because he doesn't look any different whatsoever. As she notes, they are even using clothes he already has in his wardrobe anyway.

In one episode of the React series, some of the YouTubersreacted this way upon watching the music video to Tay Allyn's "Mass Text." To quote, "Did [Allyn] just get a makeover? She looks the same!"

Western Animation

In the Futurama episode "The Cyber House Rules", Leela has surgery to replace her one eye with two. Fry liked her better before the surgery. Leela eventually decides to have surgery to revert the change. (Hey, Status Quo Is God.)

It also gives a rather nice moral about conforming one's appearance. Leela spends the entire episode celebrating that she's average and just like everyone else, but ultimately realizes that being different was who she was. Notice that Fry is the one who supports that, while the plastic surgeon boyfriend ultimately is too narrow-minded to do anything that fits outside of the norm, to the point at which he wants to perform plastic surgery on a child so she looks more normal and thus fit for adoption.

Spoofed in the first part of the two-part finale to Clone High. Joan is given a makeover by Abe, using a Fangoriaexpy as reference, and comes out as a cyborg sexy nurse. Abe likes it, she hates it. Then she's made over by her blind stepfather, with predictable results. Finally Cleo steps in, putting her in a slinky dress, fishnets, high heels, teased hair, and heavy makeup. Joan hates this just as much as the others, but Abe goes nuts for it. Meanwhile, JFK makes Gandhi over in his own preppy style, which is... odd, to say the least. In the second part, JFK claims to prefer Joan in her typical casual getup, although he may have been lying to get into her pants.

In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy, who looked rather like a teenaged Debora Whitman (although this continuity's Debora underwent a Race Lift. It's complicated), had a makeover for a Valentine's Day outing. The glasses went, the hair was loose and longer, and she kept the headband, making her look... like comics!Gwen Stacy, however it also makes her look a lot like a Blonde MJ. She kept the look in subsequent episodes.

Parodied in Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI from Spongebob. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who were fairly average-looking for the SpongeBob universe, come out of the makeup trailer as horrible, stapled, rubber-banded monstrosities.

A similar deconstruction to the Hannah Montana example above pops up in an episode of The Weekenders where two Valley Girls decide to give Tomboy Lor a makeover when they hear a guy likes her. Her friends are creeped out by it since she looks identical to the two of them and at the end the boy states he prefers Lor as a Tomboy.

Both Bright Eyes and Lancer get one in the My Little Pony Tales episode "Roll Around The Clock". They are also told to act like pompous jerks, which causes both to get angry at the other.

Barbie movies fall regularly under this, due to Barbie habit to wear bright pink and cheerful colors, including when her character is supposed to be poor. As a result, difference between Erika's princess or pauper blue dresses is barely visible, peasants dresses in Barbie & The Diamond Castle are nearly as fancy as the princesses ones, and Blair wears a hot pink skirt and (nearly identical) pumps whether she's in her waitress or princess-in-training attire.

In the Steven Universe episode Song of Sadie, Sadie looks dramatically worse after her mother has dolled her up in preparation for her to go on stage. It doesn't help that Sadie didn't want to do any of this in the first place, and only got roped and dragged into it by her overbearing mother and the overly enthusiastic Steven.

Real Life

Jennifer Grey owed her movie role success in part to her big nose which made her a more convincing Hollywood Homely appearance. Unfortunately, she chose to have a rhinoplasty that went so sour she required a second rhinoplasty and reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to her face. Whether or not she was more attractive with the bigger nose, she didn't look like Jennifer Grey anymore with the smaller one. It was like trying to start her career over from scratch. Most people agree that she looked much better before all the surgery — it would appear that she agrees. In her words, "I went in the operating room a celebrity — and come out anonymous." In fact, her decision is given a nod bigger than the old nose in the short-lived It's Like, You Know... where she plays...herself, out of work because she got a nosejob.

Averted by Barbra Streisand, who decided long ago that no scalpel will ever touch her nose since she doesn't want to risk altering the tone of her voice. Most singers tend to leave their noses alone because altering the nose may also alter the voice in ways they can't predict.

When Shakira first broke into the English language market, she decided to bleach her dark brown hair◊blond,◊ leading almost everyone to ask "Was that really necessary?" (especially American fans who were already dealing with a music scene drowning with Plenty of Blondes at the time, as she debuted in the US after the "Blonde Pop Quartet" of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore, which might help explain why she felt she needed to be blonde to compete.) Better yet, before the Anglo jump she was a redhead for almost two years but came back to her brunette self while claiming that keeping with the red dye was too much of a hassle, baffling people even more.

Mariah Carey fans have long been divided on whether she was more beautiful before or after getting plastic surgery in the mid-90's. And that's before you delve into the "But Not Too Black" implications, since many argue that her surgeries shaved away her African features and emphasized the European ones.

In 2009, tennis player Rafael Nadal cut his long hair and ditched his trademark sleeveless shirts and baggy piratas for a more "grown-up" look. Many of his fans missed the old look, mainly because they felt that his original appearance had been quite distinctive and helped him stand out from the rest of the crowd and that his new appearance made him look much more generic and bland in comparison. (Not to mention how his old sleeveless shirts were a lot better at showing off his biceps...)

Helen Hunt is on the list of actresses who indulge in plastic surgery with... questionable results. Many fans would much prefer gracefully accepting a few wrinkles to her current face, which is obviously modified.

Around the time she turned 18, Hilary Duff made the decision to have porcelain veneers, leading to this reaction. Though in this case, it was less to do with reluctance to change and more to do with the fact that the veneers made her teeth look oversized.◊ She's either had them fixed or they've "settled" since, as they look more subtle now.

Michael Jackson. That is all. Though not everything was his fault, considering that he had vitiligo (the disorder that caused his skin to turn pale), lupus and various other health problems that contributed to his radical changes in physical appearance. Few will deny though that he got carried away with plastic surgeries though (though opinions will differ as to when he looked his best); for reference, here◊ is a collage documenting his appearance over the years.

Lil Kim somehow managed to go from "90's Sex Symbol" to "Japanese Sex Bot" with her plastic surgeries. Just compare the photo on her TV Tropes page to...this. What's worse is that her onslaught of alterations came after a time period in the 2000's where she had decided to lay off the colorful wigs and stripperiffic outfits she was known for in the 90's in favor of a (relatively) natural appearance.

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